He made one of the most shocking masterpieces of the 90s – but we have been waiting for a new film for 8 years

Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke and Todd Solondz have a lot in common. All three directors make films about the ugly misery of humanityBut while you want to shoot yourself during the credits of Antichrist or Funny Games, after watching Solondz films you tend to giggle melancholically at the silliness of existence.

There is hardly a better example of such a film than his black-humored, scandalous masterpiece Happiness from 1998. A film that could just as easily have cost Solondz his young career after the success of his outsider anthem Welcome to the Madhouse.

Happiness: The joyless search for great happiness 🙂

Like many of his films, Happiness is constructed as a cleverly interwoven ensemble piece that, despite all the shock elements, a lot of heart for his broken characters and wraps you around his finger with laconic honesty and sardonic humor. A balancing act that less talented filmmakers often fail to pull off when dealing with similarly hot topics.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Allen, who harasses the disillusioned author Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) with obscene phone calls and receives a surprisingly positive response, while her naive sister Joy (Jane Adams), a sensitive teacher, is exploited from all sides. Sister number three is Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), whose pedophile husband Bill (Dylan Baker) tries to explain to his eleven-year-old son what his predisposition is all about – and daydreams bizarre fantasies of killing.

At first glance, the film title Happiness may seem ironic, but it isn’t. It is more about the multifaceted nature of what people believe makes them happy and the difficulty of achieving this happiness and being happy about it when they do. The distributor and even the Sundance Film Festival still thought this was at least a step too far, so the film was dropped for the time being.

Solondz’s last film to date, Wiener Dog from 2016, was an even more anthological comedy with once again complicated characters – just infinitely less shocking. And with a cute dachshund, who might have made Happiness a few floors more bearable. So it’s been eight years since we heard a creative sign of life from this challenging director. At least in film, because in 2018 he presented his first play in New York with Emma and Max.

But what about our happiness on screen?

Scandal director Todd Solondz is shooting his next film with Marvel star Elizabeth Olsen

To the delight of cinephiles, the 64-year-old US filmmaker with his fascination for weirdos and perverts has not yet retired. Not even in the film industry. According to Variety, Solondz is currently preparing his next coup called Love Child. With WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen in the lead role and May December actor Charles Melton as co-star. The project is in pre-production and originally had Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez planned for the main cast.

Love Child is about eleven-year-old Junior, who wants to set up his unhappy mother Misty (Olsen) with the attractive vagabond Easy (Melton) and to do so, he wants to get rid of his brutal father. But Plan A goes horribly wrong… and Plan B makes everything much worse.

Solondz himself describes his new film as “super fun and playful celebration of Hollywood movies.” The disturbing, double bottom Let’s just think about it, because it’s not as if we haven’t learned anything from his past filmography.

Solondz explained in a video on Topic that filmmaking is still not easy for him. He would rather be at home than surrounded by people, which probably explains why he no longer produces films on a continuous basis. But when he’s at home, he still finds himself drawn to the set every now and then. Whatever makes you happy, Todd.

How to watch Happiness in home theater?

After the original distributor, as mentioned above, decided not to release the film, Happiness was released by Trimark. But both the US disc and the German DVD from EuroVideo have long been rarities. And for a long time, that was the end of the sad story.

But there is also good news on the happiness front, as the prestige label Criterion Collection has announced an American DVD and Blu-ray release for the 24 September 2024 announced:

Unfortunately, the film is currently not available to stream, but hopefully this will change after the revised US release. If you want to stream other Todd Solondz films in the meantime, you can find Welcome to the madhouse on the Amazon channel Sooner, the ensemble dramedy Storytelling as a rental and purchase title on Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon or MagentaTV as well as the anthology film Wiener Dog with Arthaus+ and MagentaTV by subscription.